Mar. 26, 2014

In honor of Women's History Month, pick up a book by some of our favorite female authors. / Photo by Taylor Davis.

Written by

Taylor Davis

Assistant News Editor

In a world where 83 percent of authors in the United States are men, according to a 2011 study by VIDA, an online organization for women in the literary arts, we should celebrate and recognize female authors who have created quite a buzz with their best sellers and movie adaptations.

So grab your library card and start searching the shelves for these women’s works:

Veronica Roth

The 25-year-old Northwestern graduate has written three best-sellers so far. The “Divergent” trilogy has sparked curiosity among the masses making the best-seller list in its first week of publication. It was nominated for “Choice Book” in the 2013 Teen Choice Awards and has been made into a major motion picture currently in theaters starring Shailene Woodley.

Richelle Mead

The 37-year-old Michigan native created the six book series “Vampire Academy,” which has also recently been made into a feature film. A sequel series called “Bloodlines” is currently in progress with four books already completed, and another title, “Silver Shadows, ”releasing soon.

Veronica Rossi

This author is not quite as popular as the others, but her series “Under the Never Sky” has been adorning the shelves of bookstores since the beginning of 2012. Her books hit the best-seller list in February 2014 with a possible movie deal in the works.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

You may know this woman’s voice from Beyoncé’s girl power jam “***Flawless.” Born in Nigeria, Adichie has written four books and in was featured on The New Yorker. Her second novel, “Half of a Yellow Sun,” won the Orange Prize for Fiction in 2007. In 2013 “Half a Yellow Sun” was released as a film starring Oscar nominee Chiwetel Ejiofur.

Suzanne Collins

Collins created “The Hunger Games” series in 2008, entrancing readers so much that it stayed on the best-sellers list for more than 60 consecutive weeks. “The Hunger Games” series not only captivated the audiences on the page, but on the screen as well, starring Jennifer Lawrence as heroine Katniss Everdeen. In 2012, Amazon announced that Collins had become the best-selling Kindle author of all time.

(Page 2 of 2)

Ellen Hopkins

Most notable for her novels about teenage struggles from drug addiction, mental illness, prostitution, Hopkins is the New York Times best-selling author of “Crank,” “Burned,” and several other novels. Hopkins’ daughter was kidnapped by the girls’ father for three years, and the author has said she based her most famous novel “Crank” loosely on her daughter’s addiction to crystal meth.

J.K. Rowling

No list of successful authors is complete without the woman whose “Harry Potter” books took the world by storm. This author led a “rags-to-riches” lifestyle, which started with her on state benefits and ended with her as a billionaire. Rowling had her “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone” manuscript rejected by 12 different publishing houses before it was picked up. Rowling was told when it hit the bookstores that she should get a day job. Since her success, she’s written two books for adults, one under the name Robert Galbraith.

Janet Evanovich

This 70-year-old author has written more than 30 books in her time, topping multiple best-seller lists throughout the years. Her most attracting series is the Stephanie Plum mystery novels, book number one titled “One for the Money,” which was recently adapted to a film starring Katherine Heigl.

Nora Roberts

Roberts has written more than 200 books, 184 of which were best-sellers. Since 1991, her books have spent more than 972 weeks on the best-seller list, adding up to almost 19 consecutive years. In addition to her incredible number of romance novels, she’s also written crime fiction under the pseudonym J.D. Robb.

Eleanor Catton

A Canadian native raised in New Zealand, Eleanor Catton was the youngest shortlisted for and eventual winner of the Man Booker Prize in 2013 for her second novel, “The Luminaries”. The historical fiction novel, at 832 pages, is also the longest work to win.

Warsan Shire

Having gained much of her popularity through the internet, Warsan Shire is a 26-year-old British-Somali poet whose work shows a range of themes, from heartbreak to loss to activism. She has published one book, “Teaching My Mother To Give Birth”, and she was named the first Young Poet Laureate of London in October 2013.

Laurel O'Neill contributed to this report.

To contact the A&E editor, email Claire Osburn at ae@mtsusidelines.com. Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter and Instagram @sidelines_ae and @mtsusidelines.